The Scottish GPC and RCGP have joined forces to gather evidence of GPs’ excessive workloads, with the aim of lobbying the Scottish Government for more resources for general practice.
Scottish GPC chair Dr Alan McDevitt said that negotiating powers had been blunted in the past because of a lack of activity data from general practice.
The joint evidence gathering contrasts to processes in England, where the GPC and RCGP are operating separately.
The move follows on from Pulse’s investigation that found that 43% of GPs are classified as being at a very high risk of developing burnout, and the majority do not feel they are achieving much in their role. The GPC said that these results should warrant a parliamentary debate.
RCGP Scotland chair Dr John Gillies said: ‘An issue which always limits the ability of general practice to fight its corner in these discussions is the lack of good data about workload in practice. We are in discussion with SGPC about how to gather meaningful data which we could use to support our case for more resources.’
Scottish GPC chair Dr Alan McDevitt said: ‘We have recognised for some time that the lack of activity data in practice has hampered our discussion on increased pressure on GPs.There is a process to review unscheduled care and we want to be able to demonstrate activity levels by gathering what information might be readily available.’
